


[until the last shot]

by pipecleanerFlowers



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arc V Secret Santa, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipecleanerFlowers/pseuds/pipecleanerFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mission gone wrong and Kamishiro Rio finds herself in the enemy's hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[until the last shot]

**Author's Note:**

> after killing myself over this, it is finally complete. a rarepair that almost killed my amazing ability to rarepair. enjoy!

Rio stares into cracked mirrors, the remnants of her old home, the mansion she’d shared with her brother and their comrades (the ones who, despite hundreds of years behind them, couldn’t make it).

She lights up a cigarette, a bad habit she’d gotten from the most irritating of them all, the only one who had survived along with her. The first drag doesn’t do anything but make her cough. It’s been awhile since high school got interrupted, it’s been awhile since she’s done this. She can hear Vector snicker behind her.

She doesn’t recognize the person staring back at her through the broken glass, dark bags framing disillusioned eyes that are too old for her age. It’s been three years since the attacks started, but it feels like it’s been ten.

She turns back from the foyer that’s been crumbled half to dust in the time she’s been away, running and fighting and protecting in an endless cycle that only pauses for moments.

“Let’s go,” Rio says, voice cracking as she leads the way out of gates hanging off their hinges. “We can’t dwell too long on memories.”

Vector scoffs behind her, steps falling into line with hers. “What do you call the last few centuries?”

Her lips stretch into a bitter smile.

~

Taking the control towers was easy when Kaito was the one guiding them through shoddily repaired D-Gazers, over a comm signal that they’d hijacked from the city’s main interface.

“Where next?” Rio asks, checking the bullets left in her handgun. Four. She’d become a good shot over the years, but not nearly good enough to have every bullet hit their intended target.

“ _ A hundred metres, then take a left. You should be close to the main room if these maps aren’t wrong. _ ”

Kaito’s instructions had never been wrong before, but the Fusion soldiers were getting smarter with every area they acquired and it wouldn’t be long before most of their information stream got cut off.

(It’s why this particular control tower, formerly Heartland Tower, was so important. It’s why Vector and Kaito were three blocks away with a sniper rifle in case things went wrong, and she never thought she’d be leaving her life in his hands, but desperate measures--)

“Let’s hope for our sake they’re not,” she says, taking a breath before pushing forward.

When she gets to the door, she presses her back to the wall beside it, bracing herself for whatever enemies lay beyond it.

“ _ Just fucking do it, _ ” Vector drawls through the comm with a yawn. “ _ Watching your back is so boring when I can’t save your ass. _ ”

“You’re just jealous because my kill count is higher than yours.”

(It’s nothing but a game to Fusion, so why would they treat it any differently.)

“How many?”

“ _ Six. _ ” Kaito responds. She can hear him tapping at his keyboard. “ _ But there’s more a corridor down. _ ”

“Escape route?”

“ _ Run like hell. You can take them, _ ” Vector says. She can hear Kaito shove him.

“ _ South, like we discussed. Through the arches. _ ”

Rio adjusts her duel disk, rechecks that the auto-shuffle is off and her stacked cards are still in place, just in case she can’t end it (just in case they figured out how to force a duel, or jacked up their tethers), and kicks the door down.

The sight behind it almost blinds her as four of the six disappear into sprays of lights.

“ _ What’s going on? _ ” Kaito demands, breaking up through the comm right before it shuts down with a deafening crack.

She can see a smirk through the fading light, a pretentious snob in a cape, who looks nothing like the foot soldiers. A kid stands beside him in the uniform she’s come to know and loathe, with a shock of bright red hair like he shoved a fork into a live socket.

“She looks like she’s here for a good time,” the former says, voice smooth and low in the chaos. “Disarm her.”

It happens in seconds. Her arms are held tight at the small of her back and she’s kneeling on the cold laminate floor, hair falling over her shoulders as the redhead pushes her head down with his boot. Her disk skitters across the room, under one of the control panels, and her gun skids to a halt at the caped boy’s feet.

“How barbaric,” he says, picking it up and caressing the barrel. “Though, fitting I guess, for desperacy.”

He draws it up, points it at her head, and smirks again.

“I dare you,” Rio growls.

He flicks the safety on, withdrawing his finger from the trigger. “I have a better idea.”

~

Rio wakes up, stripped of all her equipment, the soldiers around her given strict orders not to attack so long as she isn’t hostile as she walks out of the tower who knows how long later, onto the streets being pounded by rain and sleet. Her jacket does little to protect her from the wind tunnels created by the half torn skyscrapers around her.

Her body feels like it isn’t her own, but she stared into the windows that reflected her image long enough to see no changes, save for two matching horizontal cuts on her cheekbones.

(She wants to kill him, but the sentiment is dulled, complacent, and she wonders for a moment whether it’s because she was left alive.)

Her D-Gazer is the only thing the kid let her keep, but it was useless now. She wonders if Kaito can patch it up, maybe upgrade it, if she’s being optimistic (but with the ultimatum looming over her, she’s not sure anymore).

“Hey,” she calls loudly to one of the newly posted guards at the entrance behind her, the replacement for the one she’d dispatched earlier. “Give me your comm device."

He shifts his weight, mouth curving into uncertainty, the only part of his face she can see under the thick spherical helmet.

“Hand it over,” she demands, sticking her hand out. “Now, or I’ll choke you like I did the last.”

He must be a rookie because he immediately digs into the pockets of his uniform and drops it into her hand, trembling as his partner watches, not interfering.

“Thanks,” she says, turning on her heel and walking away. She doesn't want to stay around the control tower any longer now that she's under a leash. Even if the sleet drills the cold straight to her bones.

Her hand clutches the phone tighter as she sees the date. It’s been a week -- had they assumed her dead?

She calls Kaito, punching in the only number she ever bothered to memorize, because his was the only one that mattered (the only phone they had that wasn’t a temperamental piece of shit). She hopes to all the powers in the universe that he and Vector weren't caught up in whatever went down.

“ _ Pass _ ,” Kaito says when he picks up. He sounds like he’s swallowed sand, but Rio is relieved nonetheless.

“You got really fucking drunk one time and kissed Ryoga,” Rio deadpans. “Also hey, it’s Rio. I’m alive.”

There’s some shuffling on the other end before Vector’s voice rings loud and clear through the speaker: “ _ YOU BITCH?? WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE, WE--” _

“Hey, hey, and here I thought you didn’t care,” she says, unable to help the laughter that bubbles out despite everything. “I’m near the old grocers in the East Block. Pick up?"

“ _ We’ll be there in fifteen. We’re close. Don’t do anything stupid, _ ” Kaito says, having wrestled the D-Gazer back.

“Whatever you say. See you soon. I’m ditching the phone when you get here.”

~

She’s sitting on a half-broken bench, dulled edges splinter-free from weather corrosion, toying with the different functions on the Fusion cellphone, when Kaito and Vector finally round the corner.

“What happened to your face?”

Rio touches the stitched up horizontal cuts on her cheekbones. “I… don’t know, to be honest.”

“ _ What? _ ” Vector grabs her by the collar and hefts her up, throwing her back into the brick wall. “Who the fuck are you?”

Rio grunts, a ringing growing louder in her ears as her head slams back. “I’m Kamishiro Rio, I was caught in a crossfire a week ago and have no memory of what’s happened since then. And you’re Vector, the asshole who’s killed me twice. Happy?”

Kaito catches Vector’s ear and pulls hard. “Give her some space, you goddamn moron,” he says as Vector yelps and drops Rio back onto the bench. “First thing’s first. What happened out there, Rio?"

She could always count on Kaito to keep his cool. “Some kid was in charge of the whole tower -- his lackey took me out. They have all my gear -- deck and gun included -- and other than that… I have no idea what happened,” Rio admits. “I’m sorry. I wish I had more intel, but it all happened so fast that it was hard to really take stuff in.”

“It’s okay,” Kaito says, sitting next to her on the bench as Vector paces angrily underneath the canopy they’ve nestled themselves under. “Any intel is good, even if it feels insignificant.”

“I… I dunno,” Rio says quietly. “Uhm… all I know for certain is they have transport pods of some kind. It’s probably how they get so many soldiers in.”

Kaito nods. “I’ll send that to HQ. They’ve moved, by the way--”

Vector punches the wall beside Kaito’s head. “Shut the fuck up--”

“Are you a total moron?” Kaito scowls. “You’re gonna break your fingers, you’re not some fucking rock alien anymore.”

“Well we don’t even know if this is really Rio, why are you trusting her with that kind of information?” Vector demands, voice hoarse and cracking, on the verge of hysterical. “I can’t believe this."

“So you’re saying we should ditch her?”

“I’m saying she lost her memory,” Vector says, “I’m saying she might have lost more. That we might have lost her--”

The ringing in Rio’s ears just grows louder and louder, wreaking havoc on her senses until her hands start to shake.

“She’s right here, it’s not like they have doppelganger tech,” Kaito mutters. “I can do a DNA test if you really want me to, I just need a blood sample.”

He starts taking equipment out of his pack, but the ringing grows louder still, clearer like the bell that signaled the end of classes, or the clocktower that used to be a few blocks from the mansion. It pounds in Rio’s head like a time-bomb.

_ [[capture her]] _

She screams.

And then she blacks out.

~

Rio wakes up in an infirmary. Or at least, that’s what it smells like, the twining scents of antiseptic and the sick.

Her eyes flutter open to a dotted ceiling and nurses flitting about. She recognizes Fusion uniforms hanging from hooks, helmets sitting on bedside tables as the faceless enemy becomes more than just a drone of ideology, human beings in the flesh with distinct features and scars and personalities.

It it weren’t for the breathing mask over her face and the IV in her arm, Rio would’ve taken them all out mercilessly for what they’d all done to her friends, one by one.

But…

“Ah, seems you’re awake. I was starting to wonder,” a smug voice greets her, and Rio can barely turn her head enough to see the familiar, pretentious face that she’d already failed to take out once (and was barely in the position to try again).

“I’m Yuuri, by the way, pleasure to meet you once more, Kamishiro Rio.”

“Fuck off--”

“Your friends are mine, now,” he continues smoothly. “At least, they’re my prisoners. And you… you’re my… new project.”

He waves a vial of blood over her. “Your friend was kind enough to provide us with a sterile sample so we didn’t have to go through the pains of extracting blood ourselves. Three of these vials, in fact. And do you know what we found out?”

“What,” Rio bites out.

Yuuri smiles, slow and dangerous. “You have a cousin who is of… important interest to us. A certain Kurosaki Ruri.”

“Don’t you dare touch her--”

“Oh, dear no. I wouldn’t dare,” he says, teasing, and it makes her want to knock out his perfect teeth. “But I do need someone to lead the way and maybe even do it for me.”

“No way.”

“Next time you see me, you’ll be more… shall we say, inclined? To helping me.”

His steps echo as he walks out, her vision darkening again into the depths of forced sleep.

~

Rio has been with the Academia for one month.

One month, and she doesn’t remember what happened after the accident. Yuuri tells her it’s fine, that she’ll remember what’s important in time, and that if she doesn’t, it’s okay. The battlefield is a dangerous place, and what she’s accomplished on it -- whether she remembers or not -- is important and acknowledged by their higher-ups either way.

She’ll earn medals to tag onto her uniform, Obelisk Blue with gold tasselled shoulder pads and a crisp white battle-ready skirt. It feels unfamiliar, but it’s the uniform she’s worn since she was fourteen and enrolled into the top class at Academia, so she puts it on whenever the nurses deem her condition safe to roam around in.

Yuuri fills in the gaps as she recovers in the infirmary. Her brave capture of an enemy tower, of precious cargo that was crucial to the Academia’s next steps.

He brings her tea and sits with her, talking for hours. His voice, smooth like honey, was comforting when she couldn’t even remember her comrades. They’d stopped talking to her. Maybe they were even killed. But Yuuri doesn’t talk about them.

“It might trigger something you’d rather not know,” he says one day, when she asks him again about what happened to the team that had been with her. “I’d rather you find out in time, as your memory fills in naturally. After all, no one was there but you and them and the enemy.”

Something doesn’t line up, but Rio trusts him anyway. Yuuri wouldn’t lie to her.

~

_ Don’t do this Rio! They’re controlling you! _

~

Rio has nightmares. They feel like memories, but Yuuri can’t tell her for sure. He only smiles and nods, reminding her to drink her tea before it cools. But there’s something that flits through his eyes, a caution that stops him from telling her it was just a dream.

She starts doubting that it’s all in her head.

(Especially when she can remember red eyes like hers, fear wrought deep within them, the voice of a child, and wisps of violet hair so similar to her own.)

~

Rio is set on a new mission, with a new team. Everything feels unfamiliar, and even her deck feels clunky with cards splayed in her hand, like she’s never used it before. But this is life and death, and the mission could be the end of everything they needed to accomplish in the XYZ Dimension.

She couldn’t afford to give up on her memories. She would use this deck, the one she couldn’t remember, the one whose effects she had to read and reread even while in the middle of a battlefield.

“Why won’t you Fusion summon?” one of her unit asks, frustrated at her refusal to (even though she still won).

Rio can’t admit to them that she just doesn’t know how.

How could she forget what she grew up doing, the only part of her life that had ever made any sense? Duelling was everything.

And now it was pain.

~

Rio’s back at the Academia. She thought that being home, where she belonged, would bring something of her past back to her, but alas nothing happens. Her mind stays empty of memories. Nothing is familiar.

She goes back to her room, navigating the corridors of the huge campus with some difficulty, before finding her dorm. She feels like crying, sobbing, falling to her knees because he life as she knew it is gone and nothing feels safe or comfortable.

It all just feels like a lie.

But Yuuri is waiting for her, sitting precariously at the edge of her bed with his legs crossed.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and she nods mutely, closes the door behind her, and tries to compose herself.

“I’m fine,” she says, but her voice doesn’t obey her.

Yuuri just smiles, holds out his arms. “Come here. It’s okay.”

She falls into him, sobbing as he strokes her hair and wipes away her tears, whispering soothing words and letting her go through the stages she needs to.

(It’s not okay, but at least he’s here to help her through it all.)

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO MY SECRET SANTA 2015 RECIPIENT I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS! <3


End file.
